The Universal Life Church Seminary provides free online instant ordination, free minister training, wedding ceremonies, funeral ceremonies and more. Non-denominational and all faiths welcome. We also have a great online Seminary program. For our main site, go to www.ulcseminary.org

Seminary Program

This is where we post the essays from many of our Universal Life Church Seminary students. When students finish a ULC course, they write a comprehensive essay about their experiences with the course, what they learned, didn't learn, were inspired by, etc. Here are their essays.

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Friday, August 28, 2009

Metaphysics, why metaphysics? Metaphysics, the place where the supernatural meets the natural, the spirit meets the physical "the rubber meets the road".

When we were young, in our evolution or personal growth, we look at the world around us and noticed if we did this that would happen. As we grew older we became aware, if we didn't get it, whatever that was, food, shelter, acceptance, or some material satisfier, we had a growing feeling of scarcity which led to physical discomfort, emotional insecurity or even death, this created or was created by the feeling of fear. We began to try to fix the feeling of fear by trying to take, bargain for, and make things. In our quest for things we begin to recognize that there is some sort of set of rules that governs out come. We notice if we do things the "right way" our experience will become more pleasing and that knowledge of what the right way is will help us with the out come desired. This gives rise to the notions of right and wrong, justice, knowledge and ignorance, and beauty and ugliness, (pleasing as opposed to dis-pleasing) esthetics, the rise of the law.

Through our growth we have noticed that there are forces that act on us and our world, which seem to be inexplicable but inevitable. We call these things Gods, God, Goddess, Spirit, the super natural, and fearfully begin to try to relate to, understand and gain further control of our out comes. We devise rites and rituals make sacrifices, to placate and cajole our intent to gain control and get what we desire. If the out come is not as we expect. We are driven to further questioning of what is going on, how do we fit in, and who are we really? Thoughtful introspection and contemplation lead to meditation; now we are beginning to get somewhere. Either little by little or in a flash our consciousness stills and our awareness elevates or we begin to get insight into our true nature and the nature of our world. When we first see the light we are aw-struck but then realize that there is nothing there, but pure potential so we venture back into the recognizable world where we are somebody yet with a new understanding to explore and build on.

In the mean time there is another side of us that claims to be more rational and does not believe in this hocus pocus, in its quest for who and what. It has devised another way of looking at things based on closely scrutinizing the external world experientially, by experiment and trial and error to find out what, who and how, with the same intention to gain control. This is the method of science.

What it comes down to at the present is both science and the spiritual world have agreed the universe and all that is in it is energy, this includes what we perceive to be material, and that thoughts control what we perceive, feel and manifest in some sort of cyclic fashion. This gives us the simple concept, if we change our thoughts we change our world.

So what is stopping us? Two kinds of thought create feelings and perception that limits or negatively impacts our out comes. One, we think and feel we don't deserve it and the other which is probably an extension of the first, we don't possess the ability or are not good enough. (Who told us so?)

For thousands of years there have been people that have been aware of and possessed this understanding but word of mouth travels slowly and this kind of information scares others that have tried to suppress this understanding. With the rapid and growing dissemination of information in the world this concept and techniques that support and facilitate are beginning to abound. This course was one of many variations on the theme of how to create miracles or manifest what we desire.

The ULC, run by Rev. Long, has created a chaplaincy program to help train our ministers. We also have a huge catalog of Universal Life Church materials. I've been ordained with the Universal Life Church for many years and it's Seminary since the beginning and have loved watching the continual growth of the seminary.

About the President of the Universal Life Church Seminary

The Universal Life Church Seminary offers a variety of courses, sends out a plethora of announcements and does what we can to stay in contact. Our blogs incorporate seminary course essays, announcements, poetry, products and much more.